I guess that settles it. I'll consign myself to buying up whatever dead tree editions I can; and completely forget about buying any eReader or eBooks if these "Authors Guild" idiots are going to be a rabid crowd of money mongers. Unionized writers and publishing houses, like these belong on a do not buy list. And so the world grows smaller once again. Thanks to Greed.

Btw how is this thread any different from This one that I saw last night and responded to? and yet this one has 100+ replies? Something stinks.

This practice actually raises my hackles. Alarm bells and klaxxons go off. Really they have NO BUSINESS doing this dystopian crap. This is exactly the very sort of thing that makes people angry. I for one wouldn't pay those mofo's one bluidy red cent. My wifi my business not theirs. Its not a crime. And they can't make it one just because. SCREW YOU, you damn'd IOC & your lame limpicks. DIAF and all that!

Apple, apple, Apple, apple. OMGZ go away stupid vendorship!

Pay no mind to Apple shills. iPad is just another greedy shit. Consumers want what consumers want. And for the most part we want to pick and choose the things we need for our little fiefdoms at reasonable price points. We do not want this so called vendor lockin crap. Nor do we want to be babied by control freak app stores.

Text is a hella lot more efficient IMHO. Then again I live in IRC, so I guess it goes without saying. The great equalizer is balanced by the mind behind the fingers.

XBMC + Fusion That oughta save you a wee bit more and give you far more options than you really need. You might also want to find a nice VPN service in the appropriate places. Then OTA if you need local news stations and lighter fare, and are in an area that gives you the capablity to recieve OTA transmissions. All of these things can be piped thru your pc to your big screen HDTV, you might even be able to build youself a sweet little HTPC setup with a few extra screens for IRC and other multi tasking things as well. :) Don't limit yourself.

XBMC

...NOTE: Read a book... wonderful advice... absolutely... if you stick to dead trees... but its kinda moving the other way now. I'm allready in the unfortunate place where I have to decide if I want an eReader or grab a gee-whiz-tablet with some oompth. Then it'll be the content provider issue all over again.

Oh great, so I just gotta live what 300 years until such wide spread cheap data plans et al are available?

Thrumming out of Toronto - Ontario - Canada. I'm happily with what I like to think of as the Canadian version of Sonic.net known as TekSavvy Solutions Inc. from Chatham, Ont. Great service very hands on, priced fairly from $24.95 up to $61.95, no contracts, no caps, no limits, fair speeds 28Mbps down 1Mbps up on Cable; often receiving speeds well in excess of our posted limits, they run DSL services as well. TSI is available in a few other places accross Canada. We're well connected via Broadband Reports Forums as well as our own TekSavvy Forum Customers often interact on IRC (Eris Free Network); and also via Twitter @Teksavvybuzz. Our only bone(s) of contention are Rogers (robbers) and Bell (bhell) for the last mile infrastructure which is usually almost always tariffed by the CRTC. -- We also enjoy the ability to run servers if we choose, unlike the larger incumbents that are trying to milk Canadians for every drop of cash they can get their contracts onto.

And this is one of the reasons I fear eBooks moving to eFormats Only. One day there will be no libraries. A single EMP could take out the entire collected knowledge of a certain time period in one go. (theoretically). Archaeologists of the future will wonder where all the 'amazing knowledge of the ancients vanished to.'

i.e.: kickbacks OR a tombstone?

I agree QWERTY works. I have no desire to change at this point. My fingers know where the keys are without having to be told. Do not disturb my wa with some newfangled keyboard thingy-ma-jiggy.

... and so Cisco burns their bridges with customer owned devices. Nice move Cisco. We're now adding you to the list of vendors on the do not buy list along with Apple and Sony and a host of others.